According to vehicle designer Paul Ozzimo, who worked with TyRuben Ellingson (whom we already interviewed a while back), the designers suggested putting jets onto the Samson and Dragon flying vehicles, instead of propellers. But Cameron nixed the idea. “He said no, propellers are still very efficient. It was really a shock to me that these vehicles didn’t have jet engines on them,” recalls Ozzimo. But Cameron insisited that in the future, there will be super-efficient propellers. “I really do think it makes for a much more believable vehicle, the propeller idea, because with a jet you don’t really get to see a moving part. You just see a tube, and a flame coming out or whatever. It’s kind of boring.” Also, Ozzimo says he feels like the propellers add a much-needed vulnerability to these craft, which need to be powerful and imposing, but also get “taken down” by the Na’Vi at the end. “That was a typical Jim stroke of genius, to put propellers on these things.
